The Right Time (30 page)

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘What about the old boys' networks? I went to a private school and –'

‘You did?'

He looked at her. ‘You don't have to look so surprised.'

‘Well, do you mean
private
private, or a local catholic school?'

He smiled. ‘I didn't take you for a snob, Ellen.'

She'd had quite enough of being accused of that. ‘It's a valid question,' she insisted.

‘I went to one of the poncy ones, straw boaters, the whole deal.'

So how did he end up as a mechanic, she wondered, albeit a successful one?

He was watching her. ‘You want to know how I ended up here, don't you?'

Ellen shrugged. ‘It must be an interesting story . . .'

He took a sip of his beer. ‘Okay, I did all right at school, and I got into Mechanical Engineering at Sydney Uni.' He took a breath. ‘Then when I was in second year, my father did the whole clichéd middle-age crisis thing and ran off with a younger woman. And then they stripped my mum of nearly everything. She got the house, mortgage and all, but she couldn't afford it. So we had to sell up. My sister was at the corresponding poncy girls' private school in the area, and she only had a year to go, so I deferred uni and got a job to help out so at least she could finish.'

Ellen was intrigued. ‘That's the most you've ever told me about yourself.'

‘That's the most you've ever asked.'

And now she had so many more questions. Her perception of him had just done a one-eighty-degree flip. Maybe she
was
a snob? ‘Your sister must have appreciated what you did.'

He shrugged. ‘She never knew. She thought I was a dropout. She went on to marry a bloke from my school, and well, now they've got their kids at the same poncy private schools and they're vaguely amused by their uncle the mechanic.'

‘Wow,' Ellen said in a low voice. ‘No wonder you've got a thing against private schools.' Just then her phone beeped to signal an sms message. ‘Sorry, I should check that . . . the kids.'

‘Sure, go ahead.'

She took her phone out of her bag and flipped it open. It was from Kate.
Hey Mum, just got home. Where r u?

‘That's odd,' said Ellen.

‘What is it?'

‘My daughter,' she said, frowning at the screen of her phone. ‘She's at home, wondering where I am. She's supposed to be with her father this weekend.' She looked across at him. ‘I'm sorry, Finn. I think I should go home, find out what's happened.'

‘Of course, I understand,' he said. He picked up his beer and drained the rest of it. ‘I'll take you back to your car.'

She apologised a couple more times on the short trip back to the garage, but he dismissed it. She probably shouldn't make too big a deal about it. They were just friends, after all.

‘Thanks for the drink, Finn,' she said as he pulled up next to her car.

‘My pleasure. I'm glad we got to do it.'

‘Oh,' she just remembered, ‘I didn't make the payment.'

‘I know you're good for it, Ellen,' he said with a grin. ‘And anyway, I know where you live.'

‘I'll transfer it online tomorrow, or tonight if I get the chance.'

‘Don't worry about it. I hope everything's okay with your daughter.'

‘Thanks.'

He waited until she drove away in her car, giving her a toot as she pulled off up the road towards home. Ellen hoped everything was okay with Kate too. She tried not to think the worst, not that she could imagine what the worst might be. In fact, it was probably nothing. But she couldn't help wondering why Tim had let Kate go home. Why he wouldn't check with her first? She was more than happy for Kate to come home, but she didn't like the feeling that it was expected that she would be there. When Ellen arrived at the house, she parked in the garage and came in the back way. Kate was standing at the fridge, the door wide open, staring inside.

‘Hey, you look great, Mum,' she said. ‘Where've you been?'

‘I had that interview today.'

‘Wow, it went late,' said Kate.

‘I met a friend for a drink afterwards.'

Her face dropped. ‘You didn't have to come home . . .'

‘No, I wanted to,' Ellen assured her. ‘Is everything okay, though? You didn't want to stay at Dad's?'

The fridge started to beep and Kate closed the door. ‘He was going out, and Sam was going to stay at a friend's for the night, so I thought I might as well come home. That's okay, isn't it?'

Ellen suppressed the rage building inside her, clenching her fists so her newly manicured nails dug into her palms. ‘Of course it's okay. I'm glad you're here. It's Friday night, what do you say to pizza and a DVD?'

‘I say yay, there's nothing in the fridge.'

‘Just let me get out of these clothes,' she said, heading for the hall.

‘You really do look great,' Kate called after her. ‘I like your hair.'

‘Thanks, honey.'

Ellen got to her room and closed the door, leaning against it, breathing hard. She was furious. What the hell was Tim playing at? She felt like calling him now, but he was ‘out', so it would be another one of those smug, disinterested exchanges where he'd insist there was nothing he could do. But she was going to have to talk to him about this – she would call him tomorrow and insist. If he was seeing someone, they needed to start making some ground rules. And she might take this opportunity to sound out Kate, get a sense of how she was feeling about the situation.

After Ellen had changed into jeans and a jumper, they popped up the road and ordered a pizza, then they went to rent a DVD. Kate was keen to get a girlie one, seeing as it was just the two of them, so Ellen let her pick. She wasn't sure she was in the mood for romance. She was more in the mood for strangling someone.

‘Well, that was lame,' Kate announced as the closing credits rolled.

Ellen was pleased her daughter showed some discernment. It was a typical romcom, but not a very good one. No prizes for guessing who was going to end up with whom, that was what you expected from a romcom, just like you expected James Bond to survive whatever was thrown at him. But you expected the journey to be interesting at least.

‘Do you want that?' Kate asked, pointing to the last piece of pizza.

‘No, you have it,' said Ellen. ‘So what didn't you like about the film?'

‘I don't know,' she shrugged. ‘They always show these smart, savvy women falling over themselves for the attention of some wanker. Like you're not a whole person until you're half of a couple.'

‘What did you expect from a romcom?'

‘Oh, I know,' she said. ‘I don't know why I always go for them.
Must be imprinted in our DNA.' She took a bite of the pizza and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘I mean, look at you, Mum,' she went on, swallowing. ‘You're a strong, independent woman. You don't need a man to make you feel whole.'

Ellen was surprised, and quite chuffed, that her daughter obviously didn't consider her pathetic because she was single. Strike one for her.

‘Still,' she said carefully, ‘you realise, Kate, one day I might start seeing other people. And Dad too. Would you be all right with that?'

Kate turned her head abruptly to look at her mother. ‘Would you?'

Ellen wasn't sure what she meant. ‘Would I be all right about seeing someone?'

‘No.' She tossed the pizza crust into the box. ‘About Dad seeing someone?'

‘Of course,' she said. ‘We're separated. He's allowed to move on.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Yeah,' Ellen insisted. She wondered if she should push it further. Perhaps if she just suggested . . . ‘In fact, you know, I think your father may even be seeing someone now.'

Kate looked dismayed.

‘Don't worry,' she assured her quickly, ‘I'm sure it's only casual if he is, and I don't know, I'm only guessing.'

And then Kate burst into tears. Ellen was dismayed now. God, she shouldn't have said anything. She brought her arms around Kate and hugged her, rubbing her back. ‘It's okay, honey.'

‘He told me not to tell you,' she cried into her shoulder.

Ellen's heart felt as though it had stopped. ‘What?' She pulled back to look at Kate.

‘Dad. He told me not to tell you he's got a girlfriend.'

Ellen was so stunned she couldn't speak. Fortunately she didn't have to, because for the next five or ten minutes Kate poured out everything she knew. Her father had met this woman on the internet . . . he'd been internet dating since the split . . . had gone out with about half-a-dozen women . . . Ellen couldn't take it all in, and she didn't try. Instead she took the chance to calm down, think about how to proceed, what to say to her daughter about her phenomenally inept father.

‘I hated keeping secrets from you, Mum,' Kate said finally, blowing her nose with a tissue from the box Ellen passed her.

‘Dad shouldn't have asked you to do that,' Ellen said, keeping her tone calm and even, not accusing. ‘And I'm going to have a word with him –'

‘Don't tell him I told you,' Kate pleaded.

‘Hey, you didn't tell me, I'd already guessed,' Ellen reminded her. ‘This isn't your fault, Katie, you've done nothing wrong here. Silly old Dad,' she said, trying to sound amused and affectionate, while feeling neither. ‘I don't know what he was thinking. He doesn't need to lie about seeing other people. We're separated, it's allowed.'

‘Are you seeing anyone?'

‘Of course not.'

Kate frowned.

‘Of course not,' she repeated in a more casual tone, ‘because I would have told you, and I would have told Dad, and no one would be keeping secrets. You see, Dad and I just haven't had a chance to discuss how to handle this kind of thing with you kids. And well, you know your dad, he's not real great with this stuff, so he was just trying to do what he felt was right, and he got . . . confused.' God, it's a wonder lightning didn't strike her, the fibs she was sprouting. But it was for the greater good, right now. She was going to put Tim straight as soon as was humanly possible. If she didn't kill him first.

Kate gave a loud sigh. ‘I'm so glad it's all out in the open.'

‘So am I, honey. So am I.'

Ellen was already waiting at the café when Tim walked in. She'd called him first thing this morning, she couldn't have cared less if she'd interrupted some cosy little tête-à-tête.

‘We have to talk,' she'd snapped when he'd answered the phone.

‘Oh, well, this is not a good time,' he'd said in a hushed tone. ‘I don't mean now, on the phone, we need to talk face to face. Today.'

‘I don't think I can do that –'

‘Well think again. I've had Kate in tears last night, she told me everything, so it's time I got it from the horse's mouth, or should I say “arse”.'

There was silence for a moment while he contemplated the inevitable.

‘I have to pick up Sam at three, you want to meet somewhere before that?'

‘One-thirty, at that café on the strip near the fruit shop. You know the one I'm talking about?'

‘Yeah.'

‘See you then,' she said, before snapping her phone shut.

He was approaching her table now, looking sheepish, nervous, possibly even a little fearful. Good.

The waitress arrived with Ellen's coffee as Tim went to sit down opposite her. ‘Can I get you something?' she asked.

‘Ah, yeah, I'll have a soy latte.'

Ellen rolled her eyes as the waitress walked away. ‘You've got to be kidding. Soy latte?'

‘What?' he defended. ‘It's nice. You should try it.'

‘I have, it tastes like coffee-flavoured baby formula.'

He ignored that.

‘So,' she went on, ‘jazz, soy lattes – you're really reinventing yourself, aren't you?'

‘Is that what you wanted to talk about?'

‘Oh, I think you know what I want to talk about, Tim.' She gazed directly into his eyes. ‘You've got something to tell me, I believe?'

He sighed. ‘Okay, so you know,' he said, raising his hands as though in defeat. ‘I was going to tell you, eventually, I just thought it was my business.'

‘It was your business, until you told the kids, and then, incredibly, told them not to tell me.'

Tim was shaking his head. ‘I can't believe Kate told you that.'

‘Why, isn't it true?'

‘No, but that's the point, I asked her specifically not to,' he said. ‘Kate's always been on your side.'

Ellen felt like she was dealing with an adolescent. The waitress returned with Tim's new lifestyle brew.

‘Tim,' Ellen said, speaking slowly and carefully, ‘do you not have any appreciation of the fact that it was totally inappropriate for you to tell Kate all about your love life and then tell her to keep secrets from her mother?'

Tim seemed to be mulling that over. ‘Well, when you put it like that . . .'

Ellen closed her eyes for a second, composing herself. ‘Why would you do that, Tim? I'm really struggling to understand.'

‘Well, like I said,' he began, pouring enough sugar into his coffee to make the gunk drinkable, ‘I thought it was my business. But I also didn't want to upset you.'

Ellen blinked. ‘Pardon?'

‘I didn't want to upset you,' he repeated. ‘Like you are right now.'

‘Exactly why do you think I'm upset, Tim?' she asked.

‘Well, I realise it must be hard for you to think of me with another woman.'

Ellen snorted before she could contain herself, and then she broke into full-scale peals of laughter. Tim sat stony-faced watching her.

‘Oh, it is hard to imagine you with another woman, Tim,' she was eventually able to say, wiping tears from her eyes, ‘but not for the reason you're thinking.'